Interlude at Sunrise
by Fellowshipper
Summary: Marrow takes a moment to watch the sunrise and receives an unexpected visitor.


**Title:** Interlude at Sunrise

**Rating:** PG for a few mild swear words. 

**Notes:** Yes, I'm one of those scary Sam/Marrow shipper people. They used to scare me, too. It's not so bad now that I've been assimilated into the cult. Really. 

**Disclaimer:** With how late the books are/have been, I'm beginning to wonder if these people are even around anymore. In the event that they are...well, Marvel, I'm sorry. You weren't using them, so I thought I'd borrow 'em for a while. And irrational, senseless killing Sam isn't in _my_ story like he is in _yours_. Yeah, you be ashamed, Marvel. You be very ashamed. :-)

******

This wasn't supposed to be beautiful. 

Oh, she'd heard stories about how beautiful the sunrise could be. She'd heard that there was no feeling quite like watching the birth of a new day. She, of course, had always been forced to take that on the authority of others. The closest she'd ever seen to a sunrise was while catching a few stray slivers of sunlight coming through the drains along the side of the streets overhead. 

Marrow was not supposed to see beauty. In anything. Not in tranquil scenes straight out of a picture book. Not in the symbolism of it all. Nothing. 

She grunted and drew her knees closer, hugging them against her chest and ignoring the pain in her back as a new bone scratched against the surface, seeking release. 

As far as she knew, not many of the X-Men were up this early. The Windrider would be up before long. The hairy old man was undoubtedly already awake and prowling through the woods, probably on the hunt for some small creature to skewer and devour for breakfast. The healer would wake soon to go jogging, then go back into the kitchen and stuff herself with whatever happened to be on the table. It was an interesting ritual, especially for one obsessed with making sure others were healthy. 

That realized, Sarah knew she had approximately fifteen minutes to enjoy the sunrise, then five more to get back into the mansion and in the basement before someone found out what she was doing. 

It wasn't at all that she cared for them to know she was already out and about at well before six a.m. It was the thought that it would give them hope she would be ready to trade in her Morlock ideals and convert to theirs that sickened her. They were as bloodthirsty and as violent as she was, and she knew it. They were just more discreet about it. 

With the way they'd been going recently, though, maybe they'd destroy themselves. The thought made her smirk.

Her chin came down to rest on her knees, and a soft, barely audible sigh escaped her. The first few rays of sunlight clamored over a distant hill, cutting through the blue-black sky, heralding the arrival of the sun, a new day, one full of promise and hope. One full of dismay, desperation, heartbreak. 

Just another day. 

The cornpone saw something in her. She wasn't sure what, but he saw something. Days earlier she had overheard him in a heated argument with the Windrider about her. The thought of anyone being so openly hostile against Storm was good enough, but to think it was the quiet, respected and respectful little piece of down home charm? It was enough to make her think maybe he wasn't delusional and maybe there was something beneath the hate and anger and bitterness that he would willingly fight to defend. He seemed very much convinced that underneath it all was a perfectly normal, rational human being. 

Sarah, on the other hand, wasn't quite so sure. 

Why did he have to make this so damn difficult? She knew in her heart that if he hadn't shown the slightest bit of understanding towards her, she could walk away from this place and never look back. To be honest, she could probably rip it and half its inhabitants apart without feeling the least bit guilty. But him...he was what kept her here, gave her hope. No one besides Callisto had ever truly believed in her, had ever suggested that maybe there was more than vengeful hatred to her. Sam, for all the dopey innocence of a child he projected around his teammates, was much more observant than what he was credited for. He didn't look at her in pity, or disgust, or disdain for what she had done in the past. Only sympathy and a bewildering understanding that rang truer than the icecube's words of encouragement. 

Despite the image of the happy-go-lucky boy he displayed, Sam knew pain, dealt with it, lived, and carried on, and was human enough not to let it consume him, animal enough not to forget it. 

Sarah wished with every ounce of her being that she could be as strong. 

What had he ever done that could cause even half as much pain as she felt? She found herself wondering on more than one occasion. So he lost his father. Big deal. She'd lost damn near her entire community. She'd lost her childhood. 

So had he. 

She'd let her pain and grief and self-pity shape her into what she was now: a feral, bitter Morlock with little to no compassion. 

He'd let his pain and grief shape him into something stronger than he was before. 

She hated him for having the power to do that. 

Her head tilted to rest against her left knee, deep line forming in her brow. Why did she envy some young man that was the embodiment of what she disliked about upworlders? He was eager to please, so much so that he would sacrifice his own happiness for another's. He was too caring, too aware of others' feelings and thoughts. It unnerved her to no ends that he, who had no telepathic abilities at all, could read her thoughts as surely as the redhead mind-witch could. 

Tilting her head back up to balance her chin on her knee, she tried not to gasp at the searing pain in her back. She should be used to the pain by now. She'd lived with pain her entire life. Dealt with it. Used it to her advantage. But what was worse - the physical pain, or the pain coming from somewhere inside that turned her into a senseless upworlder idiot every time she saw that stupid cornfed Kentucky-born dope? 

"Beautiful, isn't it?" 

She jumped, the movement sending bolts of pain shooting up her spine, making intense light pound in the back of her skull and eyes for a moment. When she could focus again, she saw Sam watching her, cup of coffee in one hand, other partially covering a yawn. She'd never seen him without his uniform before. No ridiculous blue and yellow spandex emphasized a muscled body honed by countless hours of training. Instead, it was hidden behind a baggy sweatshirt and a pair of sweatpants with the draw string left dangling. Tousled, shaggy blond hair fell into sleepy blue eyes, somehow having an allure of its own that begged to be touched, pushed back from his face. 

She cursed under her breath. 

"Whadda you want?" 

If he was at all daunted by her less-than-friendly greeting, he hid it well. Instead of turning into the stuttering, bashful kid as when questioned by one of his elders on the team, he simply shrugged and padded barefoot over to where she sat. "Best coffee's always in the mornin'. Ah heard Doc Reyes makin' it." He gave a tiny, shy grin behind his coffee mug. "Ah didn't know if you drank coffee, or I woulda gotten you a cup. Sorry." 

"Mmph." Sarah turned back to face the sunrise, not sure if it could hold her interest now. 

"Mind if Ah sit down?" 

"Mmph." 

"Ah'll take that as a no." Without waiting for a more explicit answer, he settled himself down beside her, stretching out and wiggling his toes. "Lord, Ah got big feet. S'funny. Never paid much attention to 'em before." 

Sarah buried her face in her knees. This wasn't happening. He was not talking about his feet, he was not acting as if he didn't have a care in the world, and dammit, he was **not** acting like it didn't bother him sitting beside a bone-wielding psychotic Morlock. 

"Somethin' wrong, Sarah?" 

She stiffened. Why did he do that? Why couldn't he call her Marrow like everyone else? Why did he have to be so nice to her and call her by her given name and not treat her like the outcast she was? She wasn't and never would be an X-Man. She was what Xavier's 'dream' fought against. Sam was the one who would believe in and die for that dream. Why, oh, why in whatever god he worshipped's name did he have to treat her like she was normal? Like she was...human?

"M'fine," came the greatly muffled reply. Sam strained to hear it, seemed unconvinced, then shrugged it off again and took another sip from his coffee. 

"If you wanna be left alone, just let me know. Ah'll leave." He paused, setting the mug down on a level spot beside him and drawing his knees up just enough to comfortably rest his elbows on them. "Ah know ya need down time. Ah mean, after everything that's happened an' all. Ah think y'also need someone to talk to," he added as more of an afterthought, never taking his eyes off the rising sun. 

"Did one o' the pretties send you out here to play peacemaker?" She asked with an anger she only half felt. She could hate the X-Men and everything they stood for until the end of time, but something about this boy and those heartfelt blue eyes just wouldn't let her be mad at him. It was irritating, to say the least. 

"Actually, they're tryin' to do the opposite. They think it's best if Ah leave y'alone." There was more than a hint of resentment there, but the uncomplimentary tone about his longtime heroes was gone as quickly as it came. Another brief pause to allow for another sip of coffee and another grunt from Sarah as the bone shifted in her back, and he was talking again. "Believe it or not, Sarah, Ah really do know part o' what you're goin' through. Ah'm not gonna pretend like Ah've been through half as much as you, 'cause Ah'm willin' to bet Ah haven't." 

"You're a quick one, cornpone." 

Sam ignored the remark and continued as if she'd never spoken. "Ah know what it's like to live a certain way an' then have it all change like that one day," he admitted with a sharp snap of his fingers. "Ah know what it's like to have to give up your childhood, to grow up too soon. Ah know how it feels to lose loved ones an' feel like givin' up. But Ah didn't let it consume me, much as Ah felt like it sometimes." He risked a glance over at Sarah, much too aware that he was treading a very delicate line between giving her a pep talk and turning suicidal. "You haven't let it consume you. Not yet, anyway. There's good in you, Sarah. Ah think you know that, too." 

"If I hear one more 'you can be reformed' speech from you people, I'm gonna puke," she warned, voice wavering just slightly as she tried to keep from crying at the pain. Sam frowned and looked back at the sunrise. 

"Ah'm not sayin' you need reformed. You've learned a lot, an' ya need to hang onto that. But ya need to see the good things, too. Ya don't need reformed, Sarah. Just need the good side brought out a li'l more." He grinned, a toothy grin that showed two matching dimples that made Sarah want to drill his head through a wall for making her notice. "Communin' with nature might do that." 

"Screw you, cornpone." 

Sam chuckled, finished the coffee, and rose to his feet. "Guess Ah'm gonna head back before they see me out here. Storm gets cranky about that." 

"Prob'ly wishes you'd rip out my other heart," Sarah grumbled under her breath, shaking her head at the same time. 

"Y'know..." Sam began, saw the look in her eyes, and trailed off. "Never mind. It's not important. Breakfast should be done in a li'l while, if you're hungry." He waited around a moment longer, found she wasn't going to say anything in return, sighed, and walked away. 

It was at that very moment that the bone finally chose to tear through muscle and skin, popping out and making Sarah bite her lip. She would not scream. She was stronger than that. But oh, it hurt, and she couldn't move, and oh if Sam was here he could make it better with those eyes and arms and that grin and those stupid dimples and big feet and too lazy to tie the strings of his sweatpants...

She lost her control suddenly and let loose an anguished cry, collapsing on the ground right in the spot where he'd been sitting. In some distant part of her mind, she was aware that she could smell the faint remnants of his aftershave that still lingered in the air. She was also too aware of the almost unbearable pain in her back. If only she could get the bone out, let the wound heal...of course the thing was directly in the middle, in an angle impossible to let her get a good grasp on it. 

So this was what it felt like to be in so much pain you went crazy just to ignore it. It wasn't a bad feeling, she had to admit. Her dream-like state let her believe she saw Sam running back over to her, dropping to his knees in front of her, feel his oddly calloused and smooth hands turning her over onto her side. That softly accented voice called out to her in some hazy part of her brain. Or maybe it was the pain speaking to her, she wasn't sure. 

"Sarah? C'mon, Sarah, answer me. Can ya hear me?" 

Nope. Not even her twisted mind could fake that lovely tenor voice that haunted her ever since she'd first heard it. 

"Mrrr," was the most intelligent thing she could get past her lips. She reached a hand up to gesture vaguely behind her. Be it by intuition, divine inspiration, or just some sort of dumb luck that was rampant with anyone related to the X-Men, Sam understood and rolled her over onto her stomach more gently than anyone had any right handling her. In another place and time, she would have been delighted to feel him squatting on her lower back, but this was not that time or place. He was bracing his feet on the ground and trying to adjust his hands on the blade, knowing that one swift pull would be the easiest, most painless method of going about this. Just like yanking out a loose tooth, he reminded himself. 

Of course, he'd employed that method up until he pulled one of Paige's teeth out before it was quite ready and made her gum bleed for two hours afterwards. 

Shaking the thought from his head, he gripped the bone as hard as he could, ignoring the deep cuts opening up in his palms, and pulled with such force he sent himself flying backwards to land several feet away. Sarah screamed again; if it was possible, the removal of the bone had caused twice as much pain as the actual surfacing of it. Within seconds, however, Sam was back at her side, holding a hand over the exit wound and watching her face with a worried expression on his own. 

When she felt the healing factor kick in and found her breath again, she pushed herself up off the ground, resting on shaky arms before trusting herself to turn around. Sam was still there, bone in one hand, other coated in blood. Her blood. Because he was trying to protect her. 

She felt a bizarre surge of pride in that. 

"Are you okay?" 

She flexed her back, pleased to feel the muscle had already healed and the skin was quick to follow. "Yeah." She took the bone from him, looked it over, and made a face Sam couldn't read. The bone was, for all the trouble it'd caused, completely useless. Brittle, dull, and thin. It'd snap if she looked at it wrong. 

Sam absently wiped his hands in the grass, staring at them when he brought them back up to see pools of blood reforming. The cuts coincidentally matched the ridges in the bone. Sarah coughed. 

"Uh...Sorry," she apologized the best she could. It was a first, and still a manner she was working on. She'd be damned if she said she was sorry for hurting someone else - if it'd been the Windrider, she would have laughed. But Sam had honestly been doing it to help her because...because he cared...

She pushed the thought away. He wasn't allowed to care about her. That wasn't in the rules she'd made for herself. Don't be cared for, care for no one. Don't let blue eyed, soft hearted country boys hurt themselves for you and make you suddenly feel very ... very ... girly. 

He waited to see if she was just lying to appease him, then decided that just from the way she was moving that she'd be fine, and smiled. "Good. Scared me there for a minute." 

"Gonna get those fixed?" She nodded her head to his hands. He shrugged carelessly, a gesture he seemed to be perfecting. 

"Guess so. Might take a few stitches. Nothin' major, though. 'Specially not when Ah'm helpin' out a friend." 

Sarah's heart was doing a light tapdance in her ribcage, and for a moment she entertained the thought of driving the new bone through it. Anything would be better than acting like a lovesick teenage girl. 

She shifted just enough on the ground to watch his retreating back, small drops of blood slipping down his fingertips as he walked back to the mansion. Oh, please don't let me say something stupid... "Hey!" He stopped and turned back around to look at her. Moment of truth. "I...uh...thanks." 

"No problem." 

"For everything." 

Sam raised thick blond eyebrows. "For what? Mah speech earlier? Ah thought that's what brought this whole new bone thing on?" He asked jokingly, about to push his hair back from his face when he remembered it'd be streaked with blood if he did. 

"For...for being a...friend." There. She'd forced the words out and finally said it. And in return, she got to see those dimples again. 

Life still wasn't good, but as the new day's sun was a testament to, every day was a chance to make it better. 


End file.
